Are you pregnant again after having preeclampsia once already in a previous pregnancy? Post your thoughts/concerns here - there are others who share your feelings. This is also the home of our Bedrest Buddies Support group.

Thanks, Julie! It'll be nice to have someone else due around the same time. It's funny but my BP later dropped a lot after getting off here and has been around 114/80 all day. Till I came back and read a few posts on here. I think reading about hypertension and preeclampsia actually raises my BP! I definitely react to triggers surrounding pregnancy fears too.

My mom keeps telling me that hypertension runs in the family and I'll probably just have to be on it for life. But I guess I am not happy with accepting that. I really want to avoid it as long as I can. But it seems harder just since getting pregnant.

Congratulations!! I just recently found out that I am pregnant again as well, I am almost 5 weeks. I never had high blood pressure until I was pregnant with my first and my BP went super high around 21 weeks. After my son was born my BP never went back to normal so I have been chronic ever since. I know that I had a hard time accepting that I was young, a normal weight and healthy and I would still have to be on BP meds for the rest of my life. I have been on Labetalol since I was pregnant with my first and my second pregnancy went much more smoothly. I am now on #3 and hoping for a similar outcome! I would for sure talk to your OB about medication as an option and see what they have to say. I know that my MFM wants to keep my BP under control because once it is out of control, it is hard to get control of it. I know my BP is always higher when I first find out I am pregnant because I am always super anxious about everything that could go wrong. I have a manual cuff that I sometimes use when I am super anxious because the sound of my BP cuff inflating makes my heart start pounding! I think I may have a little PTSD I hope that you have a healthy 9 months ahead of you!

I'm about 5.5 weeks here. I have struggled a lot with hypertension since my last child was born 2 years ago. It swings wildly right now. I had gotten it to a really good level for me but it just won't stay down long. My diastolic has ranged from 80 to 104 today alone. The 104 probably being that I was just reading about hypertension risks in pregnancy. :/ I feel extremely frustrated that despite all the diet and exercise I simply can't have a normal blood pressure consistently. I assume this means I should see the OB very soon and get put on something. I really am happy about the baby but feeling so discouraged tonight over my stupidly high blood pressure. My bp drops with weight loss but no matter how hard I try I have been unable to lose any more weight in the last 6 mo. It just bounces up and down. I really wanted to start off pregnancy thinner and in better control of my bp.

I was put on labetalol in my last pregnancy. But I have since heard that is a drug there is a shortage of? Is an OB likely to still prescribe that as a first resort or try others first? We tried some others and I didn't do well on them. They caused an irregular heart beat. I also really want to avoid one that causes weight gain since it's darn near impossible for me to lose weight. Am I at an even greater risk of preeclampsia this pregnancy starting off this hypertensive? I'm not entirely clear if I had preeclampsia the last pregnancy. I seem to recall coming to the understanding from previous conversations on here that I did. My BP had gotten very very high and I was starting to have some head aches and flashes of light. But one of the biggest deciding factors last time in my induction had been a rapid drop in amniotic fluid. I basically had a cluster of problems and they were waiting to see which one hit certain criteria's first.

I really don't want to be hypertensive for life. I know that weight loss and exercise and diet are all things that are supposed to lower BP. And I've heard of the idea of unmasking, that preeclampsia unmasks future hypertension. But since there are lifestyle factors that can prevent it is it ever a given though? Or is it possible though that you can have such damage from a preeclamptic pregnancy that you can never have a healthy BP without medication? Because I did not have high blood pressure before I had preeclampsia the first time 5 years. But I have had a huge struggle with it ever since.